12 Years A Slave (2013)

12 Years A Slave Synopsis

Based on an incredible true story of one man's fight for survival and freedom. In the pre-Civil War United States, Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a free black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery. Facing cruelty (personified by a malevolent slave owner, portrayed by Michael Fassbender), as well as unexpected kindnesses, Solomon struggles not only to stay alive, but to retain his dignity. In the twelfth year of his unforgettable odyssey, Solomon's chance meeting with a Canadian abolitionist (Brad Pitt) will forever alter his life.

Stores are always on the lookout for ways to jazz up their displays. The more eyeballs they can attract, the more merchandise they’ll sell, at least in theory. Unfortunately, an attempt to add a little pizzazz to a display of 12 Years A Slave has devolved into accusations, apologies and plenty of regret.

It’s finally here! The most distinguished, important and prestigious award show of the entire year has finally arrived! It’s the MTV Movie Awards, and they boast enough clout to break careers and ruin lives.

This explanation was couched in an approval of the intensity and performance of modern theaters, the state-of-the-art technology creating a you-are-there feeling that the home market cannot beat. And in this case, it’s perfect for taking you to Asgard in Thor: The Dark World. But the slave-era South? No, the theater cannot contain that. Keep it fantastical guys. The theater just can’t pull that off.

There's been a promotional blitz of epic proportions surrounding the release of the 300 sequel 300: Rise of an Empire. The question is whether or not it would be successful enough to confirm the rise of a franchise.

And because the MTV Movie Awards are a show for the people, the smash-comedy hit We’re the Millers racked up 6 nominations, including Best Shirtless Performance for Jennifer Aniston. Who says this isn’t the Golden Age of Cinema?

Personally, I think that’s disgusting. And I don’t want to put words in McQueen’s mouth, but I’m fairly confident he’d reject the votes of an Academy member who didn’t even bother to WATCH his film before casting a ballot.

Rarely do you make a great movie without getting some blood on the streets. Creative types who can make it in Hollywood are usually headstrong enough to believe their vision is superior to another’s, and that results in clashes. Some of those clashes happen behind the scenes of the greatest movies ever made.

"Everyone deserves, not just to survive, but to live," McQueen said in his speech. And he’s right. McQueen was handed the mic after executive producer (and co-star) Brad Pitt gave a few words, saying how proud he was to follow the story of Solomon Northup.

When the viewer is only given time to sit with its main character and think about the things that are happening to him, that’s when it stops transcending the material and reminds us that this is a movie about slavery.

Not a huge surprise then that Steve McQueen’s slavery jeremiad would also take home the top prize at the BAFTA Awards. The film also took top acting honors for Chiwetel Ejiofor, earning the spotlight on a night where Gravity was the night’s big prizewinner with six awards.

One of these upcoming releases is 12 Years A Slave, a harrowing but critical darling of a film that will be released in Digital HD format on February 18. If you are a fan of physical copies of movies, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment is bringing Steve McQueen’s film onto Blu-ray and DVD on March 4.

My argument is that the category should have shifted from five nominees to three. That would increase competition. Imagine how tight this year’s Oscar race would be if Academy voters could only choose between Gravity, 12 Years a Slave and American Hustle? Now THAT’s a race!

Hailing from such buzzed about films a Blue Jasmine, American Hustle, Nebraska, August: Osage County and 12 Years a Slave, each of these actresses has earned plenty of ink over the last few months. But only one will win on Oscar night. Whose in it to win it and who will have to say, "Just getting the nomination is such an honor?" Allow me to break it down.

Last year’s Best Adapted Screenplay contenders at the Academy Awards competed in one of the most competitive categories of the night, with movies like Life of Pi, Lincoln and Silver Linings Playbook going head to head, but by the time it was all over the literal Best Picture had won.

Today we feature Best Supporting Actor. This is a thornier pack than last year, when all the nominees were previous winners, limiting the amount of actual competition between participants (Christoph Waltz ultimately won). This year there are no previous winners, three first-time nominees, and two second-time honorees.

Every time a film seems poised to grab the mantle of “Frontrunner” in this year’s Oscar race, something happens to shift focus, change the current and disrupt the tea leaves that tend to guide the annual Oscar race.

The Screen Actors Guild held their annual award ceremony this evening, and long story short, the voting members really didn’t favor one specific film. In fact, the only movie that took home multiple awards was Dallas Buyers Club. Both lead and supporting actors Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto were honored by their peers, though that love didn’t carry over to the overall film honors, which went to American Hustle.

The Golden Globes announced their winners on Sunday, revealing the biases and beliefs of the ninety-something member Hollywood Foreign Press. As much as they get mocked for their ability to be bought and paid for, the Globes often look like a solid predictor for how the Oscars will fare.

Members of the New York Film Critics Circle voted Monday morning to remove embattled member Armond White from its ranks. It had to happen. And as Entertainment Weekly critic Owen Gleiberman wrote in a column, White brought this down on himself.

42, at its core, is the story of Jackie Robinson—how he broke the color barrier and how dominated the National League during his first season, but in many ways, it’s also the story of the Dodgers and how men of different backgrounds came together to create something beautiful that still means so much to so many people.

The lists don’t lie: Park Chan-wook’s Stoker was the best movie of 2013. Or, at the very least, it is the only movie that made it onto all four Year-End Top 10 lists mapped out by our movie contributors. But what would YOU say is the best film of 2013? Weigh in.

Lupita Nyong’o, fantastic in the part of put-upon slave Patsey, “bowed out” of the Italian screening of Slave at the 18th Annual Capri Hollywood film festival. No reason was given, though we can assume that the highly-misleading, insensitive posters for McQueen’s movie had a little something to do with Nyong’o’s decision.

SAG isn’t always right. Last year, the group accurately predicted that Ben Affleck’s Argo would have a big night at the Oscars. But the year prior, SAG went with The Help over the eventual Best Picture Oscar winner, The Artist.

The American Film Institute tends to play a little more fast and loose with its annual end of the year best movies list when compared against other organizations. Usually, there’s at least one selection odd enough to cause a double take. Last year, for example, more than a few heads were turned by the surprising selection of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises.

Presented by Film Independent, the Spirit Awards typically honor the smaller-budget artistic endeavors that harbor Oscar hopes but (depending on whom you believe) don’t possess the proper awards budget to actively campaign for the golden statue.

It was pretty well expected that the highly anticipated (or, at least, highly marketed) Ender's Game would be number one this weekend, but just how close it would come to missing that mark wasn't on most box office radars.

I spoke to director McQueen in a lengthier conversation that you can read here, but below you can watch my interviews with several of the key cast members. Let's start with Chiwetel Ejiofor, who is mesmerizing in the lead role as Solomon Northup, a free black man living in upstate New York in the pre-Civil War era who is kidnapped and sold into slavery in Louisiana

There are some weekends when a movie that is so well crafted, so thought provoking, and so much the cinematic masterpiece sweeps into theaters and is overwhelmingly the number one movie at the box office, restoring faith in the American psyche and its ability to both enjoy and reward great movie making.

Hold on to your hats-- awards season has started already. We're still months away from Oscar nominations and Golden Globes and all that, but the nominees for the first major awards show of the season were announced today, with 12 Years A Slave walking away as the big winner

This week we're just going to avoid the jokes and cut straight to the chase, since we're reviewing 12 Years A Slave and somehow that just doesn't put us in the laughing mood. For once, though, it's not David who's the dissenter on one of the most critically acclaimed movies of the year so far. Find out who's the naysayer, and stick around for some brief discussion of Kill Your Darlings, as well as for your answers to our lightning round question about favorite remakes

Surprisingly, Carrie's scores are almost as strong. While trailers have made Kimberly Pierce's adaptation of the classic Stephen King novel basically look like a shot-for-shot remake of Brian De Palma's movie from 1976, users on Fandango have given the movie a 79/100 score and it's predicted that the film will come in a close second place to the current Oscar frontrunner.

For me, it's important, vitally important, particularly because of the recent circumstances which have happened in this country-- the election of a black President, the 150 years anniversary of the abolition of slavery, the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, the unfortunate Trayvon Martin situation, the rolling back of voting rights. I think there’s never been a better time sort of for people to look at the recent past, in order to go forward.

Before we pass along this story, we admit it's a total hearsay scenario. That said, it's hearsay that's so delicious-- and truly, so completely believable-- that it demands to be shared. And in this era of heated battles over texting in theaters, it's high time we got a perfect scapegoat. That scapegoat, apparently, is Madonna

Based on a true story and adapted into a screenplay written by John Ridley (Red Tails), the film follows a man named Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) as he goes from being a free man living in upstate New York with his family to being kidnapped and brought to the south where he is sold into slavery.

Marketing Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave to a mainstream audience will present challenges. So it will be interesting to see which scenes Fox Searchlight choose to isolate when trying to lure audiences into what is, without a doubt, the most uncompromising and honest portrayals of the brutality of American slavery that we’ve seen on screen in recent years … if not ever.

Let's talk about the word "narrative." It pops up in Oscar campaigns constantly, and often can mean essentially whatever the pundit in question wants, a way for them to tell themselves-- and hopefully those listening-- a story about why a certain film has an edge. The narrative of Argo's Best Picture win was based around Ben Affleck's Best Director snub, with a healthy side serving of Hollywood's own self-regard in rewarding a story about how a fake movie saved lives

Need more proof that 12 Years A Slave is a movie you'll be hearing about constantly for the next few months? You don't have to believe the critics-- just ask the audiences at the Toronto International Film Festival. On Sunday the drama from director Steve McQueen was revealed as the winner of the festival's Audience Award...

Director Steve McQueen, whose previous two films Hunger and Shame have been tightly focused character studies, has made a stunning historical epic about a familiar, shameful subject and makes it new by making it personal

Welcome, students. The topic of today’s Toronto International Film Festival “lesson” is history. Slavery, presidential assassinations and the vicious living conditions in P.O.W. camps are dissected in 12 Years a Slave, Parkland and The Railway Man, respectively.

Here we’re introduced to Northup as a free man in New York - a musician with a lovely family. And then we get to witness the hoodlums who drugged him and sold him into slavery down in New Orleans. It’s so much more disturbing this way, seeing the before and after in chronological order.

Well that's what happens when a filmmaker keeps his star-studded film quiet and presents a first trailer with maximum impact. When we wrote about the film's new, prime release date of October 18 back in June, we didn't even have an image from the film to use. Now we've gotten a look not only at Chiwetel Ejiofor in the lead role as Solomon Northrup, but at the immense cast supporting him-

It's a huge departure for the visual-artist-turned-director, bringing back Fassbender in a supporting role but primarily focusing on Solomon Northrup, a man played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, who was living as a free black man in pre-Civil War upstate New York when he was kidnapped and forced into slavery.

When Michael Fassbender first got international attention as an actor, it was for his gripping lead turn in the Steve McQueen-directed drama Hunger. When Michael Fassbender's private parts got even more international attention, it was for his lead turn in the Steve McQueen-directed drama Shame.